He watched through the glass as strangers fought to save the woman he had once expected to spend his life with.
Deputy Price handed him the envelope.
“We found this beside her hand.”
Daniel’s fingers trembled.
“Has anyone opened it?”
“No. It was addressed to you.”
He broke the seal.
Inside were six pages written in blue ink.
The first page began with his name.
Daniel,
If Lily reaches the hospital, then she has done something no child should ever have been asked to do.
I am sorry.
Anna wrote that she had discovered she was pregnant shortly before his graduation.
She had planned to tell him after he returned from a medical conference.
Before he came home, Daniel’s mother, Victoria Mercer, visited her apartment.
Victoria had never approved of Anna.
She considered Anna’s family poor, unstable, and unsuitable for her only son.
According to the letter, Victoria claimed Daniel had changed his mind about the relationship.
She showed Anna printed emails in which Daniel supposedly said he did not want a child and would deny paternity.
She offered Anna money to leave.
Anna refused.
Then Victoria threatened to use her family’s lawyers to take the baby after birth.
Anna’s own mother believed the threats.
She convinced Anna that Daniel’s wealthy family would win.
They moved away before Daniel returned.
Only months later did Anna begin to suspect the messages were false.
By then, her mother was ill, Lily had been born, and Anna had no money.
She wrote to Daniel repeatedly.
None of the letters received replies.
She later learned that her mother had sent them to Victoria’s home address because she did not know where Daniel was living.
Anna never knew whether he received them.
He had not.
After Anna’s mother died, she tried to find him online.
But Daniel had completed residency in another state, and Anna believed he had married after seeing an engagement announcement involving a different Daniel Mercer.
She stopped searching.
The final pages explained the twins.
Their father, a man named Caleb Rhodes, had been Anna’s employer at a farm supply warehouse.
He began a relationship with her, then disappeared when she became pregnant.
He denied the twins were his and threatened to fire her if she told anyone.
